Is Constitution Day Unconstitutional?

America's schools and universities marked the
birth of the U.S. Constitution this week by complying with a
federal mandate to teach about America's most important document.
But the congressionally-directed celebration may turn out to be a
lesson in irony-at least in one Nebraska high school.

Congress created Constitution Day in 2004 when
Senator Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) inserted a provision into an
appropriations bill to require that all schools and universities
receiving federal funding to celebrate "Constitution and
Citizenship Day" by holding an educational program on the U.S.
Constitution on September 17. (This year, the 17 falls on a Sunday,
and so the government granted schools leeway to hold the lessons
this week.)

Few would disagree that it is important for
students and citizens to understand our founding principles and
American history. But Senator Byrd's amendment stands at odds with
the Constitution, and one public school teacher in Lincoln,
Nebraska, has picked up on this irony and is sharing it with his
students.

David Nebel's AP Politics and Government class
will comply with the federal mandate by considering whether the
federal mandate is constitutional, reports Margaret Reist in the
Lincoln Journal Star. Students will review the Constitution
and write papers arguing for or against the mandate's
constitutionality. In the spirit of "Citizenship Day," students are
encouraged to send letters and a copy of their essays to their
Nebraska senators and Sen. Byrd.

Now that's making the Constitution come alive, even if it's not
exactly what Sen. Byrd intended.

Congress itself could benefit from a similar exercise. The
Constitution provides strong guidance on which powers are delegated
to Congress and the federal government and which powers are left to
the states and people. It does not grant Congress any explicit role
in education. Indeed, the word "education" does not appear anywhere
in the Constitution.

But the same can be said for many of the federal government's
current responsibilities, from Social Security to Medicare to No
Child Left Behind. Americans have become accustomed to a federal
government with such broad powers, and few would recognize the
relatively constrained government laid out in the Constitution.
Regardless, precious few in Congress are schooled in limited
government.

Over the past century, the federal government has become
increasingly involved in citizen's lives. In the case of education,
the federal government had little responsibility fifty years ago.
Today, it spends more than $66 billion annually on primary and
secondary schooling and exerts more control over local schools than
ever before, establishing national rules on local matters such as
teacher training and student testing.

Few question whether it is appropriate or even wise for Congress
to set rules for local schools. For example, neither presidential
candidate argued for less federal intervention in local schools
during the 2004 campaign.

Beyond the constitutional arguments against federal involvement
in education, there's another important consideration: whether the
federal government's role in local education is practical or
effective. Are American taxpayers getting their money's worth by
sending billions of dollars to the IRS only to have it trickle back
to the states through an expensive education bureaucracy?

The federal government's involvement in education over the past
four decades has not substantially improved public education in
America. As federal spending has skyrocketed, long-term test scores
have remained flat. Annual snapshots of student learning-such as
test scores and graduation rates-suggest that millions of children
still are not receiving a quality education in America's public
schools.

Over the next two years, Congress will debate the
reauthorization of No Child Left Behind and the 2008 presidential
campaign will begin a new national conversation on education. Many
politicians no doubt will call for an even larger role in
education. But like Mr. Nebel's high school students, Americans
should take time to reconsider the federal government's role in
education and ask whether it's time for Congress to devolve federal
authority back to local communities.